The line that caught my eye was Tolkien stating, in a letter to Stanley Unwin,
Unfortunately I am not an Anglo-Saxon
The context in this 1951 letter is Tolkien's recalling the outside reader's report rejecting THE SILMARILLION fourteen years earlier, in which the reader 'allowed it a kind of Celtic beauty intolerable to Anglo-Saxons in large doses'
But why shd Tolkien preface his comments about THE SILMARILLION's refusal to be suppressed with the comment about not being Anglo-Saxon?
Is Tolkien being ironic, along the lines of 'if Anglo-Saxons don't like this kind of stuff, and I do, then I must not be one of them'? I know Tolkien in some times and moods described himself as a Hwicce, but that doesn't seem apropos in this case. Indeed I wd have thought JRRT had a better claim to calling himself an 'Anglo-Saxon' than many, being of Saxon ancestry on the Tolkien side and Anglish descent through the Suffields.
In any case, one of Tolkien's more oblique statements, I thought.
--John R.
current music: THE WHO'S TOMMY (esp. the second half)
current reading: BEREN & LUTHIEN, some Japanese light novels.
6 comments:
To save others some searching, this line may be found in The Letters of J R R Tolkien in letter 124 (here dated 24 February 1950). In the 1995 paperback it begins the last paragraph on p.136.
It appears to me that it is merely a flippant way of saying 'I am not like those who find the beauty of the Silmarillion indigestible'. Tolkien may have understood the Anglo-Saxons better than almost anyone in his time, but he was not uncritical of them (witness The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son), nor could he--as a product of 20th century genealogy, culture and learning--possibly resemble them at all closely.
He would have been aware of the gulf between the ethnographic term Anglo-Saxon (meaning those who invaded Britain from the Continent after Rome lost interest) and the cultural short-hand Anglo-Saxon (meaning English-dominated Great Britain who in turn dominated an Empire of many lands and more races), and may have suspected the reader's original comment leaned more to the latter definition; which would, of course, have included himself.
Hello John, Your name came up today at the Tolkien Conference at Baruch College, so i thought i would try to track you down. The conference reminded me of all the great continuing ed courses you ran at Marquette. They were all so foundational for me. Hope you are doing well. andy
Well, i thought it would leave my full name, etc. Ah well. Andy Mendelson (in case there are too many Andys). I am actually now New York based, working at CUNY's journalism school. Hope all is well with you. a
Dear Andy
Is this Andy Mendelson? Good to hear from you again. I got to see your dad, briefly, when I was giving a presentation at Marquette a few years ago.
I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the continuing ed courses on Tolkien, fantasy before Tolkien, fantasy since Tolkien, and the rest of it. I'm currently in Milwaukee on a Tolkien research trip, and while here I hope to see the book group that evolved out of those classes, who are still meeting all these years later.
And I learned a lot too, from having a great bunch of people signing up and joining in discussions with lots of questions and opinions; self-motivated students are a joy to teach. I don't think I'd have ever done CLASSICS OF FANTASY without having done those courses in fantasy first.
So, how was the Baruch College Tolkien conference? Did folks get to make a side-trip to see the Tolkien Exhibit?
--Yrs
--John R.
This is Andy Mendelson! How long are you going to be in Milwaukee? I ask because i am actually flying into Milwaukee tomorrow through next Monday to see my mom. I would love to catch up if you have time. I have seen the Tolkien exhibit twice, so far. (I still have the poster from the Marquette exhibit from the so long ago). The conference was fun; i very much enjoyed a presentation by Jason Fisher. BTW My email is andrew.mendelson@journalism.cuny.edu
Dear John, The Tolkien family name and the Tolkien family was of Prussian ancestry, not of Saxon. The Tolkiens had no Saxon ancestors, and their Prussian roots are well evidenced:
https://tolkniety.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-tolkien-family-tree-from-middle.html
https://tolkniety.blogspot.com/2019/12/baltic-ancestry-of-prof-tolkien.html
https://tolkniety.blogspot.com/2019/11/important-news-about-professor-tolkiens.html
Greetings!
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